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Legal News Archive For
July, 2009

WICHITA, KS—A 51-year-old man was charged with first-degree murder and jailed for the killing of a physician whose women's-health clinic often was highlighted in the debate over abortion, authorities said.
Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed while serving as an usher at his Wichita, Kansas, ...

NEW YORK—As the controversial detention center at Guantanamo Bay prepares to close, the first “high value” detainee will go to trial in New York City.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who was indicted by a federal grand jury in connection with the American Embassy bombings that took place in Tanzani...

SAN FRANSISCO, California—Michael Savage, a San Fransisco-based conservative talk show host, has been banned in Britain.
Savage is notorious for his sharp-tongued right-wing commentary, which has made headlines and landed him in hot water, throughout his career.
The Chronicle had an exclus...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said President Barack Obama's U.S. Supreme Court pick, Sonia Sotomayor, is a racist and should withdraw her name from consideration.
Other conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter have also accused Judge Sonia Sotomayor of making racist comments in 2...

Salt Lake City—After a two-year undercover investigation, 24 people were indicted earlier this week on charges of stealing, receiving or attempting to sell a variety of Native American artifacts.
The two dozen people named in the indictment were apparently part of a network of people who engaged...

The Supreme Court revived a possible $550,000 fine against broadcast network CBS, following up on a ruling from last week, for having shown a split-second image of Janet Jackson's breast during a Super Bowl halftime show in 2004.
The Philadelphia court had ruled that the Federal Communications Com...

Minneapolis—A Minnesota woman is getting a second day in court, this time accompanied by some aggressive new lawyers, after having been found guilty of copyright violation by sharing music on the file-sharing network Kazaa.
Jammie Thomas, 32, is the only person accused of illegal file sharing to...

Nassau County, NY—The retail giant Wal-Mart will pay $2 million, and take steps to improve safety protocols at all of its NY locations, as part of a deal reached with prosecutors in the case of a worker's death.
Jdimytai Damour, a temporary employee who had been with the company for only a week,...

New York—The Queens district attorney has filed charges against a Scarsdale woman who is accused to stealing millions of dollars' worth of gold from her place of employment.
District Attorney Richard Brown said that the woman, 50-year-old Teresa Tambunting, may have taken up to $12 million worth...

Tenaha, TX—A number of motorists who passed through the small town of Tenaha, Texas, which sits near the Louisiana state line, say that police stopped them and coerced them to give up their money and valuables.
Now the motorists are teaming up to file suit against the police department and Shelb...

General Motors Corporation has gone public with their recent plummeting loss, posting a $6 billion loss in the first quarter and that $10.2 billion lost in the first three months of the year. The total revenue drastically dropped by $20 billion.
There was discussion about the company filing for...

San Francisco—A Ponzi scheme which targeted Korean Americans by promising them up to 36% returns on foreign currency trading has landed a Danville, CA man in federal court.
Authorities say that Peter C. Son, who faces civil and criminal charges for defrauding investors of $80 million dollars, us...

The lawyer of an escort service booker named Tameka Lewis has spoken out to say that former New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer met regularly with prostitutes for a year and a half even before the eruption of the scandal that caused him to resign.
Marc Agnifilo, attorney for Lewis, spoke out ear...

WASHINGTON—The 19 largest banks in the United States will be told today how they did on their “stress tests” and, depending on the results, will be informed of regulators' final decisions on how much capital needs to be raised.
The announcement on Thursday will also report how much banks wou...

Chicago, IL—The attorney for Drew Peterson, who's facing first-degree murder charges in the death of his third wife, and who remains a suspect in his fourth wife's disappearance, will petition the judge in the case for a reduction of bond.
Peterson, who is a former Bolingbroke, IL police officer...

Houston, TX—In the first sex-abuse case ever brought against a sitting federal judge, U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison.
The judge pled guilty to obstruction of justice in February, in an agreement to avoid a trial on not only the obstruction char...

Hartford, CT—A federal judge has ruled that four illegal immigrants' constitutional rights were violated in raids conducted by federal agents, in retaliation for a program that granted ID cards to those who were living in the country illegally.
In June, 2007, the city of New Haven approved the i...

Atlanta—In what is being heralded as the largest crystal methamphetamine seizure to ever take place in the Eastern United States, authorities took approximately 351 pounds of the drug from two suburban Atlanta homes.
The operation to seize the meth began on Sunday and lasted into Monday, althoug...

NEW YORK—The city of New York has settled a wrongful-death lawsuit with the family of a mentally ill patient who died while at a Brooklyn hospital.
Esmin Green, 49, was a psychiatric patient who was waiting in the city-owned Kings County Hospital Center when she died. Officials say that she had ...

Washington—After 22 years on death row, and just a month before his scheduled execution, Paul House is walking free.
House, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1986 for the rape and murder of Carolyn Muncey, was released on bail last year while the Supreme Court debated his cas...

The Illinois state attorney's office reported that Drew Peterson, the former police sergeant who has made the headlines for being the prime suspect in the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, has been indicted on murder charges related to his third wife, Kathleen Savio.
Peterson was...

Los Angeles—A convicted arsonist who set a Southern California wildfire that killed five firefighters has been sentenced to death.
Raymond Lee Oyler, charged with five counts of first-degree murder after having set an October 2006 fire, was convicted in March. The blaze, which began on a hillsi...

Edinburgh—Under the Damages Act, which was passed in March in Scotland, Scots with pleural plaques can claim compensation from their employers, even though this is prevented in the rest of the United Kingdom after a House of Lords ruling.
Now, insurers are slated to seek a review of this legisla...

NEW YORK, New York—On Wednesday, Chrysler prepared to ask a bankruptcy judge for permission to sell the bulk of its assets to an organization led by Italy's Fiat, in order to avoid liquidation.
Chrysler LLC's attorneys are consistent with their reporting that the deal with Fiat Group SpA is th...

Denver, CO—The Colorado House of Representatives has reapproved a bill which will allow workers in labor disputes to collect unemployment, even when they have been locked out of work.
Supporters of the bill, HB 1170, say that this measure reinstates labor laws that had been in effect before a 19...

Rio de Janeiro—Brazil's Supreme Federal Court said this week that it could not rule in the case of a 9-year-old boy, whose custody is being disputed by both his American father and his Brazilian stepfather.
The unanimous vote by the Brazilian high court declared that they would not rule over T...

Little Rock, AK—The lawyer for a man who is suspected of shooting two men at a military recruitment center claims that his client was brainwashed while imprisoned in Yemen.
Abdulhakim Muhammed is charged with fatally shooting Pvt. William Long, 23, and with wounding Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula. His l...

PADUCAH, Kentucky—The members of an Iraqi family who survived an attack said that they are haunted by the murder and pillage committed by a gang of U.S. soldiers.
On Monday, during the testifying, family members said their lives have been ruined, and that they wished that the U.S. soldiers had k...

Los Angeles—An appeals court in California overturned a decision that had given Starbucks employees the right to keep the entire amount in their tip jars.
The baristas had formerly brought a class-action suit, on behalf of 120,000 former and current employees, against the coffee shop chain. The...

Orlando, PA—A child whose mother faked her own abduction and took the pair to DisneyWorld has been returned to the custody of her father.
Authorities say that 38-year-old Bonnie Sweeten emptied her bank accounts, took identification belonging to a co-worker and used it when buying airline ticket...

San Francisco—Convicted murderer and so-called “Unabomber” Ted Kacynski is back in the news, more than a decade after pleading guilty and being sentenced to a life term in a federal Supermax prison.
Kacynski has conducted a legal battle over the past five years in an attempt to block the pub...

After President Barack Obama criticized hedge funds for blocking an out-of-court restructuring of the U.S. carmaker Chrysler's $6.9 billion debt, the American company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The Obama administration reported that the owner of Jeep and Dodge would come out from...

New York—Larry Birkhead, who recently entered the tabloid spotlight as the father of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter, Dannielynn, has been back in court, this time accusing his former attorney of false promises, a faked record of family law practice, and unfair dealings.
Debra Opri, who represented...

ATHENS, Georgia—A white supremacist who murdered one of his followers has a new execution date—Wednesday, a day after a Georgia judge corrected a legal mistake that delayed his execution just hours before it was supposed to occur.
William Mark Mize was scheduled to be put to death lethal injec...

Washington—Under current law, the punishments for possession or sale of crack cocaine versus the punishments for possessing or selling powdered cocaine are widely disparate. Critics of the laws surrounding cocaine and other drugs have long argued that this disparity is racially motivated. Now a S...

ATLANTA, Georgia—An Atlanta, Georgia lawyer is suing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saying that they invaded his privacy during his scare with tuberculosis.
In the suit filed last week, Andrew Speaker said that the CDC invaded his privacy by releasing his name and other private m...

Washington—A former Army Special Forces commander who underwent gender reassignment surgery – and was denied a Library of Congress job because of it – has won a federal lawsuit.
Diane Schroer was a former U.S. Army colonel who specialized in tracking and targeting terrorists. In 2004, Schroe...

Washington—A Tennessee man convicted of murdering an elderly couple in 1980 has been granted a review of his sentencing by the Supreme Court.
Gary Bradford Cone, who is currently sitting on death row, had mounted an insanity defense during his trial, claiming that post-traumatic stress disorder ...

Forty-four years ago, the Voting Rights Act, which outlawed discriminatory voting practices that opponents complained were deny the rights of African-Americans, was passed into law. It has since been repeatedly upheld by the United States Supreme Court. Currently, it is back before the justices ag...

Murfreesboro, TN—Employees at the Veteran's Administration hospital in Murfreesboro, TN, are claiming that their workplace was unsafe due to asbestos contamination – and that hospital officials knew about it.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration recently cited the VA hospital, a...

Missouri—A specialized court may be the next step for child-support battles in Missouri, as the state debates a new approach to this growing problem.
Specialized courts which deal with drug offenders has worked thus far, if some Missourians get their way, child support courts won't be far behind...

Phoenix, AZ—After the operator of a speed-enforcement camera was shot and killed, critics of the program are fighting to have it discontinued.
Doug Georgianni was killed on April 19th as he sat inside a speed-enforcement van on a freeway in Phoenix. In custody in Maricopa county, charged with fi...

Washington—In a narrow vote, the Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that regulators can impose strict penalties, including fines and sanctions, against television networks which broadcast so-called “fleeting expletives.”
Fleeting expletives are isolated instances of the use of profanity, ...

Mexico City—Lawyers and staff at Gardere, Arena y Asociados in Mexico City wore surgical masks to their office on Monday.
There are various precautions that the office is taking since Mexican government officials announced the deadliness of the swine flu. By afternoon on Monday, 1,600 people ac...

Washington—Top United States intelligence officials said on Monday that the National Security Agency was not responsible for placing a wiretap that reportedly intercepted phone conversations made by Representative Jane Harman.
The National Intelligence Director, Dennis Blair, refused to name the...

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